


it's an autism thing

by fourshoesfrank



Series: autistic dc [3]
Category: Aquaman (2018)
Genre: #actuallyautistic, Ableism, Autistic Arthur Curry, Autistic Character, F/M, Field trips, Fish, Gardens, Gen, High School Football, Stimming, sensory issues, yOU HEARD IT HERE LADS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 12:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: Don't touch me. Let me go. Stop fucking tapping my shoulder. Please stop touching me.





	it's an autism thing

**Author's Note:**

> it's april so pls enjoy this collection of words that does not paint autism in a negative light
> 
> remember guys: red instead

"Don't touch me," Arthur snaps, knocking an unfamiliar hand off his shoulder.

  
They listen. The men in the bar stop touching him. He poses for their selfie, has a few drinks with them, and not once do they touch him without asking and receiving permission.

  
The other men clap each other on the shoulder and exchange fist bumps and high fives. One of them—Arthur thinks his name is Charlie, but he's not sure—tries to give Arthur a light punch on the arm, to celebrate a good shot in their game of pool. Arthur sidesteps the hit and raises his stick in triumph instead. Charlie does likewise, and all is well.

  
Arthur lets them put their hands on his shoulders, once he's drunk enough to think of these men that he just met today as friends. Only Arthur's friends are allowed to touch him without asking. That's a Rule that even drunk Arthur knows.

 

-

 

"Let me go!" Arthur screams, flailing around in the grip of his third grade teacher's hand as she drags him away from the fish and over to the doorway that leads to the outside. She's dragging Arthur towards the door that he knows leads to bright sunlight and _pain_ , so he's doing everything he can to prevent that from happening.

  
Arthur knows that people are staring. Arthur doesn't care. Maybe someone will take pity on him and intervene. That's happened before; older kids or other teachers see that Arthur is scared and they stop to help.

  
He realizes, as the door is shoved open and he's dragged through it into the bright sun, that nobody is going to help him. He wants to cry, but he knows better. If he cries, the teachers will have another thing to punish him for. They'll say Arthur was being difficult, disobedient, disorderly, and a whole bunch of other words that start with D. Sometimes, Arthur wishes he could get the teachers in trouble for being dickheads. He's not supposed to know that word, and it takes all his willpower to keep himself from shouting it at the top of his lungs whenever a teacher starts dragging him around. He hates the way teachers touch him. They treat Arthur like a zoo animal, but people aren't supposed to touch zoo animals, so they actually treat him like one of their pets that they caught doing something bad, like chewing on a shoe or pooping in a flowerbed. That’s even worse.

  
Arthur can't understand why this problem even exists. If they just don’t look at him when he moves around and has fun, they won’t have to get angry about it.

  
The sun is too bright. Arthur screws his eyes shut tight, but his teacher lets go of his hand and snaps at him to follow her, so he has to open his eyes to see where she’s going. He squints to protect his eyes as he reluctantly falls into step behind the woman.

  
Why didn’t he just bring sunglasses? Oh wait, he wore them last year and got yelled at for not taking them off when the class was eating their lunch at the picnic tables. The tables were outside, in the sun, so Arthur still doesn’t understand why he had to take his sunglasses off. It’s not rude, his dad eats with them on all the time.

  
The teacher tells Arthur to get on the school bus in the aquarium parking lot, and sit there until the rest of his class is done having fun on the field trip. Arthur sighs. This is the second time that his yearly school trip to the aquarium has been cut short. The first time he went, as a kindergartener, he started yelling in excitement at all the fish. His kindergarten teacher picked him up, carried him to the single stall bathroom, and told him to stay in there until he could be quiet.

  
Arthur hasn’t told anyone about that yet. He’s gonna wait until he’s in fifth grade, because by then he’ll be out of her reach. Primary school teachers can’t punish intermediate grade level kids, it’s a rule. Arthur normally doesn’t like rules that much, but this one is his favorite.

  
He’s sitting in the same seat that he sat in during the bus ride here, the one two rows behind the driver. The teachers always make him and Helga, the girl who doesn’t talk, sit up front with the grownups. Arthur hates it. The teachers say that it’s because the two of them don’t know how to behave themselves, but Helga and Arthur both have figured out that the adults just don’t like them.

  
The good part about being forced to sit in the spot that he came here in is the fact that his backpack is sitting next to him, and it’s got books in it. Books about fish that Arthur brought to distract himself just in case this happened. He’s so angry that he had to plan ahead for this.

  
He opens an animal encyclopedia to the first page about fish and begins reading. This is a library book, so he doesn’t know what kind of cool stuff is in it yet. He keeps a running list of good fish books in his notebook, and oh yeah, he’s _definitely_ adding this one. It has full-page illustrations!

  
Arthur checks to make sure his teacher isn’t looking, sees that he’s absorbed in her cell phone, and begins to rock back and forth on the (thankfully not creaky) leather bus seat.

 

-

 

"Stop fucking tapping my shoulder," Arthur says to the kid behind him at a football game. Mera wanted to learn about surface sports and now she, Arthur, and Tom are here at a high school football game because how the fuck was Arthur supposed to say no to Mera?

  
The game isn't that interesting. The players are a bunch of high school kids from rural Maine; of course it's a boring game. Still, Mera seems to be enjoying herself, and Arthur's dad has an excuse to cheer for Arthur's high school again. Neither man ever played football, but Arthur went to a lot of his school's games during his four years there.

  
The only problem is the kid who won't stop touching Arthur. He's gotta be about thirteen, fourteen, and he won't keep his grubby hormonal hands off of Arthur for a reason that Arthur doesn't even know. Hence, Arthur telling the kid to _stop fucking tapping my shoulder._

  
The kid doesn't listen. Arthur tries to ignore him, but the game is already louder than he remembers because they're playing a school that Arthur's former school has a long-standing rivalry with. Seriously, even Arthur’s dad remembers hating that school. That's how long the rivalry has lasted.

  
"What's your problem, kid?" This time, Arthur turns to face the boy directly, and the capital-S Scared look the kid has on his face is fucking golden. He looks up at Arthur and seems to really realize what kind of guy he’s been poking. Arthur glares into the kid’s eyes for a few seconds before he turns back to the game. His school is winning.

  
“Sorry, man.”

  
Arthur almost laughs. This kid is so ridiculous. A real riot. He’s even more annoying now.

  
“Yeah? You’re sorry? Keep your hands to yourself, kid.”

 

-

 

"Please stop touching me," Arthur requests, and Mera immediately removes her hand from his. They're taking a walk on the surface. Arthur's parents invited the two if them to visit the house that Arthur grew up in, and Mera couldn't contain her curiosity, so here they are.

  
Mera's eyes are wide and her mouth is slightly open as she walks around Atlanna's garden, admiring the flowers. Arthur has to admit that his mom has a hella green thumb. She mostly grows wildflowers like Queen Anne’s lace and snowdrops, but Mera brought some rose seeds as a gift and they've been planted in the center of the garden.

  
Thinking about the flowers distracts Arthur from giving Mera an explanation for why they're not holding hands any longer. He knows she must want one, everyone always wants to know what’s up with his weird _thing_ about being touched. Mera doesn’t look like she wants to know right this minute, though, so Arthur decides to tell her later and savor the moment now.

  
They eat lunch/dinner (linner? dunch?) with Arthur’s parents, and then Mera wants to go for another walk in the garden so of course Arthur agrees. Mera tries to entwine their fingers together, but Arthur refuses.

  
“What’s wrong, Arthur?”

  
Oh, god. Oh, shit. He spent basically all of dunch trying to figure out how to explain this, and since his brain has apparently decided to fuck off into the void for a while, Arthur just replies with, “It’s an autism thing.”

  
God, why’d he do that?

  
Mera looks confused, and Arthur thinks he feels exactly the same. Of all the disjointed phrases that happened to be bouncing around his head, his mouth had picked the least helpful one. He sighs and tries to elaborate.

  
“I told you how my senses process stuff different from other people, right?” When he gets a nod in response, he continues. “Right now any touch is too much. I don’t want to feel any pressure on my skin.”

  
He’s about to say more, make his explanation clearer and more believable, when Mera just nods at him again and says, “I won’t touch you tonight, unless you ask.”

Arthur wants to cry. His dad is the only one who’s ever been so casual and kind about...any of his autistic traits. This walk with Mera in his mom’s garden is definitely going in Arthur’s top ten times that it was good to be autistic.

**Author's Note:**

> i love comments!! and kudos!!!!


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